John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

John Lubbock was born in 1834, the son of Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet, a London banker, and his wife Harriet. He was brought up in the family home of High Elms Estate, near Downe in Kent. The family had two homes, one at 29 Eaton Place, Belgrave Square where John was born, and another in Mitcham Grove. Lubbock senior had studied mathematics at Cambridge University and had written on probability, and on astronomy. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was keenly involved in the scientific debates of the time, as well as serving as the Vice Chancellor of London University. During 1842, his father brought home a "great piece of news": the young Lubbock said later that he initially thought that the news might be of a new pony, and was disappointed to learn it was only that Charles Darwin was moving to Down House in the village. The youth was soon a frequent visitor to Down House, and became the closest of Darwin's younger friends. Their relationship stimulated young Lubbock's passion for science and evolutionary theory. In 1845, Lubbock began studies at Eton College. After finishing school, he was employed by his father's bank, Lubbock & Co. (which later amalgamated with Coutts & Co.), of which he became a partner at the age of 22. Around 1852, he assisted Darwin's research by examining and illustrating barnacles. In 1865, he succeeded to the baronetcy. == Business and politics ==

In the early 1870s, Lubbock became increasingly interested in politics. In 1870, and again in 1874, he was elected as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone. He lost the seat at the election of 1880, but was at once elected member for London University, of which he had been vice-chancellor since 1872. In 1879, Lubbock was elected the first president of the Institute of Bankers. In 1881, he was president of the British Association, and from 1881 to 1886, president of the Linnean Society of London. He is credited with the now-common use of multi-member districts instead of country-wide districting proposed by Thomas Hare in his 1859 single transferable voting (STV) proposal. '', 1882 In recognition of his contributions to the sciences, Lubbock received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge (where he was Rede lecturer in 1886), Edinburgh, Dublin and Würzburg; and was appointed a trustee of the British Museum in 1878. He received the German Order Pour le Mérite for Science and Arts in August 1902. From 1888 to 1892, he was president of the London Chamber of Commerce, and he was later President of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom. In local politics, he was from 1889 to 1890 vice-chairman and from 1890 to 1892 chairman of the London County Council. and was chairman of the committee of design for the new coinage in 1891. On 22 January 1900, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Avebury, of Avebury, in the county of Wiltshire, his title commemorating the largest Stone Age site in Britain, which he had helped to preserve. He was President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1900 to 1902. In November 1905, together with Lord Courtney of Penwith, he founded the Anglo-German Friendship Committee which sought to counteract the influence of the British war party, whose anti-German propaganda was then at its zenith, and smooth the way towards more amicable relations between England and Germany. Lubbock was a proponent of easy access for all to books and was deeply involved in the passing of the Public Libraries Act, 1892. The quotation, "We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth", is often attributed to Lubbock. This variation appears in his book The Pleasures of Life. == Archaeology and biological science ==

In addition to his work at his father's bank, Lubbock took a keen interest in archaeology and evolutionary theory. In 1855, he and Charles Kingsley discovered the skull of a musk ox in a gravel pit, a discovery that was commended by Darwin. A collection of Iron Age antiquities Lubbock and Sir John Evans excavated at the site of Hallstatt in Austria is now in the British Museum's collection. He spoke in support of the evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley at the famous 1860 Oxford evolution debate. During the 1860s, he published many articles in which he used archaeological evidence to support Darwin's theory. as well as the position of Vice President of the Royal Society in 1871. During this period he worked with John Evans, the other key figure in the establishment of the discipline of archaeology. He also introduced a Darwinian-type theory of human nature and development. "What was new was Lubbock's ... insistence that, as a result of natural selection, human groups had become different from each other, not only culturally, but also in their biological capacities to utilize culture." Lubbock complained in the preface to Pre-Historic Times about Charles Lyell: In the 1870s, he bought land at Avebury to prevent part of the ancient stone circle from being built on. This, and other threats to the nation's heritage, persuaded him that some legal protection was needed. In 1874, he introduced a parliamentary bill that would identify a list of ancient sites that deserved legal protection. After several later attempts and against some opposition, it was not until 1882 that a much watered down version, The Ancient Monuments Act, came into being. Though restricted to 68 largely prehistoric monuments, it was the forerunner of all later laws governing the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage. Lubbock was also an amateur biologist of some distinction, writing books on hymenoptera (Ants, Bees and Wasps: a record of observations on the habits of the social hymenoptera. Kegan Paul, London; New York: Appleton, 1884), on insect sense organs and development, on the intelligence of animals, the first monograph on UK Springtails (Collembola) (Monograph on the Collembola and Thysanura, Ray Society, London), and on other natural history topics. He discovered that ants were sensitive to light in the near ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum. He also noted that ants used the angle of the sun for orientation. A verse in Punch in 1882 described his activities: , 12 May 1905 He corresponded extensively with Charles Darwin, who lived nearby at Down House. Lubbock stayed in Downe except for a brief period from 1861 to 1865, when he lived in Chislehurst. Both men were active advocates of English spelling reform, and members of the Spelling Reform Association, precursor to the Simplified Spelling Society. Darwin rented land, originally from Lubbock's father, in Sandwalk wood where he performed his daily exercise, and in 1874 agreed with Lubbock to exchange the land for a piece of pasture in Darwin's property. When Darwin died in 1882, Lubbock suggested the honour of burial in Westminster Abbey, organising a letter to the dean to arrange this, and was one of the pallbearers. In 1884, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society, in 1889, as an honorary member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and in 1893, a member of the American Antiquarian Society. He received the 1903 Prestwich Medal from the Geological Society of London. == Family ==

Lubbock was one of eight brothers and three sisters; three brothers, Alfred, Nevile and Edgar, played first-class cricket for Kent. Edgar and Alfred also played football and played together for Old Etonians in the 1875 FA Cup Final. His nephew, Percy Lubbock, was a prominent man of letters and another nephew was the writer and historian Basil Lubbock. Lubbock married Ellen Frances Horden in April 1856. Five years after her death, on 17 May 1884 he married Alice Lane Fox, the daughter of Augustus Pitt Rivers . He rebuilt Kingsgate Castle, near Broadstairs in Kent, as his family home, where he died in 1913. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John. He was buried in St Giles the Abbott Church, in Farnborough, London. Three years later, his remains were disinterred and placed in a family burial ground a few hundred yards from the church, along with the original stone Celtic cross marking his grave. In 1986, Bromley Council, unknown to the Lubbock family, moved the cross back to the main church graveyard. ==References==

The following is a list of publications by Sir John Lubbock, arranged in chronological order by the dates of the first editions of each work. • Lubbock J. (1865) '''', Williams & Norgate, London • Lubbock J. (1870) '''', Longmans, Green & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1871) '''', Ray Society, London • Lubbock J. (1872) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1873) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1874) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1877) "Ant Intelligence", Scientific American article, 31 March 1877, p. 198-199 • Lubbock J. (1879) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1881) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1882) '''', Keegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., London: 442 pp. • Lubbock J. (1882) '''', National Society, London • Lubbock J. (1882) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1883) '''', Keegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., London: 512 pp. • Lubbock J. (1885) Representation, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Berne • Lubbock J. (1887–89) '''', (2 volumes) Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1889) La Vie des Plantes, Hachette Livre • Lubbock J. (1890) Flowers and Insects, Macmillan & Co., London (Included in later compilations) • Lubbock J. (1892) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1894) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1896) The Duty of Happiness, H. Altemus, • Lubbock J. (1896) '''', Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1898) On Buds and Stipules, Keegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., London: 239 pp. • Lubbock J. (1902) The Scenery of England, Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1902) A Short History of Coins and Currency, John Murray • Lubbock J. (1904) Free Trade, Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1905) Notes on The Life History of British Flowering Plants, Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1905) Happiness and Thrift, Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1906) On Municipal and National Trading, Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1909) On Peace and Happiness, Macmillan & Co., London • Lubbock J. (1911) Marriage, Totemism and Religion, Longmans, Green & Co., London ==Further reading==